The Justice Department sued the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Jehovah's Witnesses sect is banned in Russia - the Ministry of Justice suspended its activities for extremism, filed a lawsuit to close it in the Supreme Court. The Ministry of Justice announced the possibility of criminal prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses

The activity of the sect "Jehovah's Witnesses" has been suspended in Russia in connection with the implementation of extremist activities, according to website of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.

The religious organization "Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia" by order of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated March 15, 2017 No. 320-r "On the suspension of the activities of a religious organization" was added to the list of public and religious organizations whose activities were suspended due to their extremist activities, should from site content.

In fact, this will be the liquidation of not only the Administrative Center, but also all 395 local religious organizations of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect, as well as the confiscation of all prayer houses belonging to these organizations. Recognize the Administrative Center as an extremist organization and ban its activities.

If the Justice Department gets its way, any of the 175,000 believers could face up to 10 years in prison simply for practicing their faith.

Earlier, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in the country after violations of anti-extremist legislation revealed during the audit.

Consideration of the administrative claim of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation on the recognition of the religious organization "Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia" as extremist, the ban on its activities and liquidation is scheduled for April 5, 2017.

The organization "Jehovah's Witnesses" regularly becomes the object of attention of supervisory authorities in all regions of Russia, in addition, in a number of regions its activities are prohibited.

Previously, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld decisions to liquidate the territorial branches of Jehovah's Witnesses in Orel, Stary Oskol and Belgorod, Abinsk in the Krasnodar Territory, Samara, Birobidzhan and other cities.

Local branches of the organization have repeatedly been brought to administrative responsibility for the distribution of extremist materials: in Tyumen, Abinsk, Samara, Saransk, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Gelendzhik, etc.

Violations

It is known that adherents of the sect are engaged in propaganda of the idea aimed at the destruction of the family, inciting inter-religious hatred. They also oppose the use of donated blood and military service.

Jehovah's Witnesses claim in their writings and sermons that they are better than everyone else. That is, they assert their superiority on religious grounds, as we have written in the definition of extremism. They do not claim that their people are kinder - they just believe correctly, and the rest are wrong. Of course, this can be understood as a statement of superiority, but this is clearly a broader understanding of extremist activity - although they are far from the only ones to whom it has been applied.

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The Ministry of Justice announced the possibility of criminal prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses

After the liquidation of the head office of Jehovah's Witnesses, criminal cases may be initiated against believers for violations of anti-extremist legislation, a representative of the Ministry of Justice said during a trial in the Russian Supreme Court on April 6.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 5 the Supreme Court of Russia started considering the suit of the Ministry of Justice to ban the activities of the administrative center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. Representatives of the defendant called the attempt to ban their activities political repression, but the court did not agree with this assessment. The Russian Ministry of Justice asked to confiscate the property of a religious organization, but admitted that it had no information about the offenses that were committed under the influence of the literature of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Local religious organizations in the Southern Federal District and the North Caucasian Federal District were repeatedly fined for using literature later included in Federal list of extremist materials . Several local organizations were also liquidated, including Taganrog, Abinsk, Circassian, Elista . "They take every case when we say that our faith is correct, and deduce extremism from this," - earlier commented The "Caucasian Knot" these precedents, the representative of the head Russian office Yaroslav Sivulsky.

Rights "are not diminished", but the deadlines threaten

During the meeting on April 6, Judge Yuri Ivanenko asked the representative of the Ministry of Justice Svetlana Borisova with questions about the purpose of the lawsuit, what is the reason for the requirement to liquidate the organization, what is the basis of the statement of claim.

"Citizens after the liquidation of the organization where it will be possible to gather and unite on religious grounds?" - the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" who was present in the courtroom quotes Ivanenko's question.

Borisova replied that the right to freedom of conscience and religion remains, the satisfaction of the claim of the rights of citizens "does not diminish", but believers can be prosecuted under a criminal article on extremism.

"We believe that the ban on the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses does not violate the rights of citizens, but if such a decision is made, law enforcement agencies will be able to initiate cases under Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code (organization of the activities of an extremist organization)," TASS quoted a representative of the Ministry of Justice at the trial in the Supreme Court as saying. .

Various provisions of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code provide for fines ranging from 300,000 to 800,000 rubles and terms of imprisonment from two to 12 years, depending on the severity of the offense.

"The law does not oblige to liquidate the organization, but this is not such a case"

"The religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses has signs of extremist activity. We have evidence of the distribution of literature containing allegations of exclusivity, which poses a threat to public order," Svetlana Borisova said during the trial.

"What information is a threat to public order?" - the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent quotes the judge's question.

"Information related to the activities of the organization, what it is, that its foundations of dogma are prohibited ... An indefinite circle of people constantly interacts with the organization, as it is engaged in missionary activities. The organization imports literature, which is subsequently recognized as extremist, the management structure includes organizations recognized extremist," a spokeswoman for the Justice Ministry said.

"In order to stop the spread of extremist literature, it is necessary to liquidate the organization. The organization, as a leading center, does not perform coordinating functions, so it must be liquidated," the plaintiff added.

According to the administrative center of Jehovah's Witnesses, "since March 2015, no literature of Jehovah's Witnesses has been imported into Russia due to a complete ban imposed by the North-Western Customs Administration." This is reported in the "Objection to the administrative statement of claim of the Ministry of Justice of Russia."

The judge clarified whether the law always requires the liquidation of an organization upon the discovery of extremist literature in its local divisions.

"No, not always. But this is not such a case," the plaintiff replied.

"The judge's questions were asked in order to clarify the essence of the requirements of the Ministry of Justice. In our opinion, no satisfactory answers were received," Viktor Zhenkov, the defendant's lawyer, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Another lawyer, Yuriy Toporov, tried to find out whether, under the law on extremism, a warning could be issued to a structural unit without issuing a warning to the organization as a whole. According to Borisova, issuing such a warning is not prohibited by law, according to a test broadcast of the website of Russian Jehovah's Witnesses. When asked whether the law provides for the liquidation of a structural unit without liquidating the organization itself, Borisova replied: "According to your interpretation, it does not."

Judge Ivanenko clarified whether notifications about violations of the law by local religious organizations were sent to the administrative center. The representative of the Ministry of Justice said that she did not have such information.

Ministry of Justice of Russia since March 15 suspended activities administrative center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. All 395 local organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses, including communities in the Southern Federal District and the North Caucasus Federal District, applied to the court to join the process as co-respondents, but their applications were rejected.

"Such cases were reported in the media"

As a threat to public order, the representative of the Ministry of Justice called the refusal to transfuse donor blood, practiced by Jehovah's Witnesses who prefer bloodless medicine. "An indefinite circle of people will receive information ... related to their health," Svetlana Borisova substantiated the position of the plaintiff.

Judge Yuri Ivanenko clarified which rights of citizens are violated by this.

"The right to receive emergency medical care. There are many such cases, they are reported in the media, we have only one court decision on this case," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent quotes the words of a representative of the Ministry of Justice.

"In response to the uproar in the hall, the judge asked those present to restrain their emotions," the official website of the Russian Jehovah's Witnesses describes this episode.

Lawyer Viktor Zhenkov petitioned to refuse to accept a copy of the court decision provided by the Ministry of Justice, since the document does not mention any of the organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses, and also "it is mentioned that there was no threat to life, it was planned treatment."

As a result, Judge Ivanenko postponed the issuance of a ruling on attaching the document to the case file.

On June 10, 2010, in the case of the Religious Community of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow and Others v. the Russian Federation, the European Court of Human Rights concluded that refusing a blood transfusion cannot be compared to an attempted suicide or murder. "The situation in which a patient seeks to hasten the onset of death by stopping treatment is different from one in which patients, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, simply choose a method of treatment, but still want to recover and do not refuse treatment altogether," the ruling says. European Court.

"The question of the testimony of experts can still arise"

"According to the judge, the question of the testimony of specialists - religious scholars and linguists - may still arise in this process when we reach the stage of examining evidence. At the same stage, the question of hearing eyewitness testimony of the incidents that formed the basis of However, they do not need to come, the court can listen to their testimony via videoconference," Viktor Zhenkov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

It should be noted that on April 5, the court denied a request for interrogation of 45 Russian citizens who could tell about the circumstances of the discovery in liturgical buildings of literature published by Jehovah's Witnesses and subsequently recognized as extremist.

Witnesses for the defense, in particular, are residents of Maisky, Prokhladny (Kabardino-Balkaria), Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk, Sochi (Krasnodar Territory), Stavropol, Kislovodsk, Budennovsk, Pyatigorsk, the village of Nezlobnaya (Stavropol Territory).

"On March 2, 2016, the parent organization received a warning from the Prosecutor General's Office about the inadmissibility of extremist activity. The warning pointed to the closure of local organizations and the connection between them and the management center. In the 12 months that ended on March 2, 2017, we had many plantings of recognized extremist literature," Ivan Belenko, press secretary of the management center, told the "Caucasian Knot" earlier. In particular, the incident that occurred on September 20, 2016 in the village of Nezlobnaya was filmed by surveillance cameras. A video posted on the website of the Russian Jehovah's Witnesses contains footage of people in black masks entering the worship building taking literature out from under their clothes and placing it on a nearby table.

In the regions of the Southern Federal District and the North Caucasus Federal District, according to the management center, there are about 48,000 actively practicing followers of this religion. In particular, 430 believers live in Dagestan, 1.6 thousand in Kabardino-Balkaria, 350 believers in Karachay-Cherkessia, 8.5 thousand in the Stavropol Territory, 4.3 thousand in North Ossetia, and 17 in the Krasnodar Territory. ,5 thousand, in the Rostov region - 6.5 thousand, in the Astrakhan region - 900, in Kalmykia - 80, in the Volgograd region - 6 thousand, in Adygea - 1.5 thousand Jehovah's Witnesses. H in southern Russia, as of March 30, there were 107 local religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses: in the Krasnodar Territory - 39 communities, in the Rostov Region - 13, in the Volgograd Region - 14, in Adygea - seven, in the Astrakhan Region - one, in the Stavropol Krai - 22, in Kabardino-Balkaria - five, in Dagestan, North Ossetia and Karachay-Cherkessia - two each.

Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia has reached unprecedented proportions , said Russian human rights activists. The UN Human Rights Committee and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have previously expressed concern about the application of the law on extremism to Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. April 6 courtattached to the case materials that may indicate political motives, in particular, documents of the UN, OSCE, statements of human rights organizations.

The "Handbook" section of the "Caucasian Knot" has published an all-Russian list of materials recognized by the court as extremist. In accordance with Article 13 of the federal law "On counteracting extremist activity", this list "is subject to periodic publication in the mass media."

“Let your word be: yes, yes; no no; but what is more than this is from the evil one.”

(Gospel of Matthew 5:37)

On April 12, 2017, the court session of the Supreme Court continued on the claim of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation on the liquidation of the Religious Organization "Administrative Center (AC) of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia" and several hundred local religious organizations (LROs). Today's meeting was, of course, unique due to the fact that for the first time in the history of the confrontation between the SoI and government agencies, former members of the Soi organization with many years of experience acted as witnesses in the case. They expressed a desire to testify as people whose rights and freedoms, in their opinion, were violated by the organization.

The situation was more than piquant, because about 200 Jehovah's Witnesses present at the meeting were forced to listen to the testimony of four former fellow believers, who showed the other side of the internal life of the organization. As you know, Jehovah's Witnesses are strictly forbidden to communicate with the so-called apostates - former members of the organization who are active in anti-witness activities. One of these witnesses in the case was a woman who became a member of the organization back in 1983! She was expelled from the organization for hanging out with a friend who had previously been expelled from the community.

I have never had the opportunity to attend such meetings before. And I specifically decided to visit it to see everything with my own eyes. What struck me about this meeting? First of all, by the way the argumentation of the defense of the CA was built. It is worth saying that all lawyers representing the interests of the UC are convinced Jehovah's Witnesses and employees of the UC itself. Among them were elders. No less curious were the testimonies of the defense witnesses. As such, four members of the organization were invited - people involved in science and having high scientific degrees.

I will not bore readers with the legal side of the case and the course of the entire trial. I will only point out the most important things. The prosecution, represented by representatives of the Ministry of Justice of Russia, aims to prove the direct connection and implementation of the leadership of the MRO SI in the field from the CA. This is necessary in order to prosecute the CA for the leadership of LROs that were recognized as extremist for the storage or distribution of publications that were previously recognized as extremist. The defense, in turn, is trying to prove that the CA does not manage the MRO.

The main problem is that the real and actual state of affairs within the organization and the formal legal side of the issue do not intersect. In any case, legal casuistry and resourcefulness are required in order to legally present the case in a favorable light for the CA. If we were talking about a secular organization and protecting its interests, lawyers could only be praised for their high professionalism and acting. But in this case we are talking about a religious organization that positions itself as the most principled and honest in the world. As a result, the lawyers of the organization, as well as the chairman of the CA and his deputy, in my opinion, had to play a trick and change their own principles in order to get the CA and the LRO out of harm's way. White lies - there is no other way to call it. And this lie in the minds of the SI can be justified by the supremacy of the will of God over the laws of Caesar.

However, for the CA SI in the Russian Federation, such tactics of legal resourcefulness are not new. For many years, SO MROs have been building and operating their Kingdom Halls not as places of worship, but as private structures that are later transferred or purchased by MROs from an individual who is a SO. Such a legal scheme makes it possible to bypass the need for complex coordination of the construction of a religious building.

The defense of the UC and its witnesses made the following theses:

• The UC provides only canonical (spiritual) care to LROs and religious groups (assemblies) only in the form of recommendations.
• LROs and religious groups are completely independent from the CA in decision-making, in particular, in the decision to adopt a charter, create and liquidate LROs.
• The UC is not a source of religious guidance and does not give interpretations of doctrinal issues to members of LROs and religious groups (assemblies). All this comes exclusively from the Governing Body based in the USA.
• The religious beliefs of the SI are based solely on the Bible (and not necessarily in the PNM version!) and do not necessarily require the use of publications from the Watch Tower Society.
• The UC does not coordinate the preaching activities of members of religious groups and their functioning.
• Ordinary Jehovah's Witnesses are not members of any religious organization and act solely on personal initiative and conviction.

People who have been SI even for a short time know and understand how far these statements are from reality. Each of these theses is refuted by internal documentation, publications and daily routine in the organization

The difficulty lies in the fact that in the case of the SI, the canonical care and the administrative direction carried out by the CA are so intertwined that it is virtually impossible to separate them. For clarification, here it is necessary to refer to the model of functioning of the SI organization on the principles theocracy - a form of government that implies the combination and inseparability of the spiritual and administrative power of the earthly representatives of God. In other words, from the point of view of the doctrine of the SI themselves, the division here is simply impossible. However, in order to present the case in court from the point of view of the formal letter of the law, one has to forget about theocracy and insist on dividing the leadership carried out by the CA into administrative and canonical.

I cannot give a competent assessment of the legal legitimacy of such a scheme. But it seems to me that there is also a legislative gap that allows making such a division legally legitimate. After all, laws should reflect reality, not hide it. If the SI wins this judgment legally, they have already lost it spiritually. They showed that corporate interests are more important than Christian ideals and personal convictions.

The legal formalism of the SI has a long history. Let me remind you that the second president of the Watch Tower Society was a lawyer - Joseph Franklin Rutherford, who took the presidency and began to exercise undivided power, eliminating the Board of Directors of the corporation by taking advantage of the fact that during the annual corporate meetings there were no formal re-elections of directors, and therefore, he was able to remove most of the directors of the Watch Tower Society from their posts without resorting to a general vote (A.H. Macmillan, "Faith on the March." Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1957, pp. 78-80).

Close the parent organization of Jehovah's Witnesses. The accusations are old - extremism and other passions-faces," the public figure writes in his blog .

"Jehovah's Witnesses belong to the so-called new religions. Neither the traditional Christian denominations nor the Protestants recognize them as their own. Like the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses included part of the Christian teaching, but then added a lot of their own. The moment that Jehovah's Witnesses are the only from large denominations, who simply took and rewrote the Bible for themselves.This is the so-called New World Translation, in which everything that did not fit into the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses is corny corrected.Well, the doctrinal difference with ordinary Christians among Jehovah's Witnesses is great.

At the same time, everyone admits that Jehovah's Witnesses, perhaps more than all religious movements, preach. Their life is generally pious, they don't drink, they don't smoke, they don't take drugs, they are faithful to their wives and husbands, they are good fathers and mothers."

“Jehovists have problems with the external environment and with the state only on two issues. The first is that they do not accept blood transfusions, because they believe that this is a variant of cannibalism. The second is that they do not engage in politics, do not serve in the army and do not celebrate holidays .

It is easiest to criticize the Jehovists for refusing blood transfusions. But let's be honest - there are thousands of different religions in the world, and many of them with various strange restrictions. Jehovists do not mutilate the body, do not limit themselves and children in food, do not practice monasticism and withdrawal from the world. They work, study, live and preach. Plant them only for their faith - why?

Let me remind you that even during World War II, Hitler failed to break the Jehovah's Witnesses through torture and concentration camps. Many of them died in furnaces and gas chambers, but did not betray their faith, did not take up arms. I don't think the DOJ will be able to scare them if Hitler couldn't. We will get 170,000 (approximately as many Jehovists in Russia) prisoners of conscience, who have sat down only and exclusively for the faith. And maybe some more additional broken destinies.

Christians have a lot of complaints about Jehovah's Witnesses. But these are our "showdowns". Everything can be clarified through preaching, through criticism, through apologetics. Why involve the state? Moreover, someone who, but Jehovah's Witnesses is no longer some kind of dark forest. They have been in the world for many years, they are in almost all countries. Pretty common religion, to be honest. Yes, someone is annoyed that they ring the doorbell. But if we understand that among them there are both former drug addicts and alcoholics, who could call at our door for a completely different reason, then it’s better to call Jehovah’s Witnesses. For the fact that people strive for a righteous life, one cannot be punished for this.

There is another, rather mean, moment. Because of their faith, Jehovah's Witnesses cannot, in principle, defend themselves politically, since they do not participate in politics. These are not Mormons with their state of Utah, these are not disciples of Christ or Baptists with their presidents at the head of the United States. Jehovists, in principle, have no political force that would protect them. And, of course, those Christian denominations who have such a representation and who have their own grudge against this trend like to use this.

I will not speak about other denominations. Maybe if they are banned, people from them will run away. But with Jehovah's Witnesses, we know what will happen. Most of them will not give up their faith. And what - send them to camps? Repeat what the Nazis did?

Think about whether we need to break the lives of 170,000 people."

Suspended the activities of the parent organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. The organization, which represents a religious trend that emerged in the United States in the 19th century, was included in the list of public and religious associations whose activities were suspended due to their extremist activities. A week ago, the Ministry of Justice sent a corresponding lawsuit to the Supreme Court of Russia.

“The court received an administrative claim from the Ministry of Justice of Russia to recognize the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia as an extremist organization and to ban its activities on the territory of Russia,” the court representative said.

On April 5, the Supreme Court will make a final decision on the work of the organization in Russia.

In response, the chairman of the center's steering committee issued a video message in which he called the current trial the most difficult time in the life of 175,000 followers of their church.

“They are asking for capital punishment for all three hundred and ninety-six of our organizations! A special point is to confiscate from believers all their prayer houses and other property! If the Ministry of Justice gets its way, believers will face up to 10 years in prison!” the religious leader pointed out.

In October last year, the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses were banned in Birobidzhan by a decision of the court of the Jewish Autonomous Region due to the distribution of extremist literature.

“According to a court decision, the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Birobidzhan was declared extremist, does not meet the requirements of the Federal Law “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations”, its activities are prohibited on the territory of Russia, it is liquidated with the exclusion from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities,” – stated in the official announcement.

At the same time, the official representative of the organization noted that the publications included in the list of extremist materials, because of which this decision was made, did not belong to Jehovah's Witnesses.

“Evidence has accumulated that law enforcement officers and persons cooperating with them systematically plant printed publications included in the Federal List of Extremist Materials (FSEM) at worship services,” the church said in a statement.

Last summer, the Sverdlovsk Regional Court recognized the Witnesses' brochure as extremist material. The proceedings concerned January 2015, when Witnesses were distributing a brochure entitled “How did life appear?” in one of the shopping centers in the city of Serov. In the course of the examinations, the experts found that the publication contains statements aimed at inciting hatred and enmity towards other religions. The representative of the religious organization filed an appeal against this decision, but the court left it without consideration.

The defenders of Jehovah's Witnesses are often members of US diplomatic missions. So,

American diplomats expressed concern about the ban on the activities of the Witnesses in Taganrog in 2015.

The embassy then called on the Russian authorities to stop the persecution for religious beliefs, and the press secretary of the American embassy said that in Russia "the state denies the rights of religious minorities."

Jehovah's Witnesses are not the first religious organization whose legality is challenged by the Ministry of Justice. On November 23, 2015, he considered the claim of this ministry for the liquidation of the "Church of Scientology of Moscow" and recognized the organization as not complying with federal law. Scientologists were given six months to shut down. Church followers tried to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court, but the latter upheld the decision of the Moscow City Court.